

COPYRIGHT DEPOSffi 







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L. R. COLLIER 


SALES MANAGER OK MAIL SELLING FOR 
THE REVIEW OF REVIEWS COMPANY 
PUBLISHERS OF 0. HENRY, SIMONDS* 
HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR, ETC, 











HOW TO WRITE 
A BUSINESS LETTER 

BY 

Lf R. COLLIER 


* 


PUBLISHED BY 

THE REVIEW OF REVIEWS CO. 
30 IRVING PLACE NEW YORK 

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Copyright, 1921 

By The Review of Reviews Co. 
New York 


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HOW TO WRITE A 
BUSINESS LETTER 


f 


HAT is the greatest 
force in business to¬ 
day? What has done 
more towards building 
up the commercial su¬ 
premacy of America 
than any other one factor? What is the 
most used and the most abused medium 
in the whole business world? 

The Modern Business Letter 

It is the first thing you turn to in the 
morning—the last thing you attend to at 
night. It creates prestige, it finds new 
customers, it opens doors to your sales¬ 
men, it sells goods, it collects accounts, 
it answers complaints, it satisfies angry 



5 





customers—it does everything a per¬ 
sonal representative could do, and fre¬ 
quently it does it better. 

Concerns that ten years ago were 
struggling along on a shoe string, are 
today great and prosperous—all from 
the judicious use of “right” letters. 
Coal mines, corsets, automobiles, houses 
—all conceivable kinds of products—are 
marketed by mail. Sears, Roebuck & 
Co. did a business of $250,000,000 last 
year—entirely by mail. Every concern, 
great and small, uses the mails and is de¬ 
pendent upon them—in short, they are 
today the life blood of business. 

How important it is, then, that your 
letters should truly represent YOU— 
that they should reflect your personality, 
put over your ideas, win the attention, 
the interest and the action that you 
would if you were with the reader 
in person. And yet—think a moment— 
how many of the letters that come to 
your desk every day contain any of the 


6 


life, the “punch,” that their writers pos¬ 
sess? How many merit even passing 
attention? 

Is it any wonder, then, that in a re¬ 
cent Congressional investigation it was 
brought out that 98% of all circular let¬ 
ters are thrown away unread? Think 
of that! And the reason? Lack of in¬ 
terest, lack of “punch,” lack of that pe¬ 
culiar ability to fit your start in with 
your reader’s trend of thought. Think 
what an enormous saving could be ef¬ 
fected if every business correspondent 
understood the few, simple, fundamental 
principles of “right” letter-writing. 

Yet if you were to ask these same cor¬ 
respondents, they would tell you—“Oh, 
it can’t be done!” That’s the old stand¬ 
by of the weak, the inefficient, the stand¬ 
patters too old or too lazy to change. 
But it cm be done—it is being done 
every day—it is just a matter of finding 
the right method, of hitting upon the 
proper motive. 


7 


Why, the first big Publishing House 
I was ever connected with as Mail Order 
Manager had tried six different times to 
start the sale of their books by mail, 
without success, yet by merely changing 
their method, by putting a new angle to 
their offer, we sold $35,000 worth of 
books within four months after our first 
letter went out! That seemed big re¬ 
sults then, but since then I have fre¬ 
quently ‘‘ passed” more orders than that 
in a single day. 


8 


‘ - ^TARTING at the 



very beginning, 
what is the first thing 
to do in writing any 
business letter? 


■v Before you put 
pen to paper, be¬ 
fore you ring for 


your stenographer, decide in your own 
mind just what effect you want that 
letter to produce on your reader—what 
feeling it must create in him to make 
him order your goods—pay his account 
—give you the job. For back of every 
successful letter, whether it be a sales, 
collection, complaint or adjustment 
letter, is a created feeling that impels 
the reader to act as you want him. 

The Parisians 9 formula for writing 
letters may do very well for love letters, 
but it was never meant to apply to busi- 


9 


ness —“ Begin without knowing what 
yon are going to say, and end without 
knowing what you have said.” 

Put yourself in your reader’s place. 
Think how you would have to feel before 
you would be willing to place that order, 
to grant that extension, to send those 
overdue payments. What would you 
want to know? What about the propo¬ 
sition would interest you most? What 
would you gain by accepting it? What 
would you lose by refusing? 


10 


[1 


ti 


GETTING THE 
READER’S 
ATTENTION 


Y^UR reader, 
looking over his 
mail, gets a series of 
impressions just as 
you might if you 
were looking from 
the window of a 
train. You catch a 
fleeting glimpse of some object, you turn 
for a closer inspection. If that interests 
you, you observe every detail carefully, 
otherwise your glance wanders off again 
in search of some more interesting 
object. 


Every mail brings your reader ten, 
twenty, a hundred letters urging him to 
buy this or that, to pay up some bill, to 
try out some new device. He glances at 
them casually, hurriedly. Unless your 
letter has something about it that stands 
out from the mass—that catches his eye 


11 






—that arouses his interest—away it goes 
into the waste paper basket. 

Your problem, therefore, is to find 
some point of contact, some feature, that 
will flag your reader’s interest, that will 
make your letter stand out from all 
others the moment he reads the first 
line. 

But it won’t do to yell “Fire!” just 
to get him to look your way. That may 
get you a moment’s attention, but you’ll 
lose it the next unless you can back it up, 
and once lost you ’ll never get it again. 

Go up to your reader just as you 
would go up to a man standing talking 
with some friends. You wouldn’t break 
in on their conversation with some start¬ 
ling statement about a totally foreign 
subject. You’d listen a moment and get 
the trend of their talk. You’d join in 
that, and then lead it around to the sub¬ 
ject you were interested in. 

Everyone is constantly holding a men- 


12 


tal conversation with himself about the 
things he is interested in. You must 
chime in with that conversation. You 
must pick up the trend of your reader’s 
thoughts and go on from them to your 
own, making your letter join in with his 
conversation. It’s easy—merely a mat¬ 
ter of putting yourself in the other fel¬ 
low’s place. 

Suppose, for instance, you were the 
mother of a month-old baby. What 
would be most in your thoughts? Well, 
imagine then, how such a letter as this 
would appeal to you: 

‘‘After baby’s food and baby’s 
clothes, the most important thing you 
have to decide upon is the little cart 
baby is going to ride in—is going to 
be seen in—is going to be admired in. 

“Never a child came into the world 
but was worthy as good a cart—etc. ’ ’ 

Or if you were the father of a six or 
eight-year-old boy, wouldn’t this get un¬ 
der your skin? 


13 


“Your boy is a little shaver now; 
he thinks you are the most wonderful 
man in the world. You can fix his 
boat, mend his velocipede, tell him 
wonderful stories. 

“But it will be only ten or twelve 
years until he goes to College. The 
fathers of the other boys—his chums 
—will go to see them. There will be 
a Railroad President, perhaps; and a 
great Banker; and a Governor. 

“And you will go; and your boy 
will say: ‘ This is my father, boys. ’ 

‘ ‘ How will he feel when he says it ? 
Will he be proud of you?” 

Or if you were a Doctor, sitting in 
your office or library, wouldn’t you agree 
with this? 

“What a clutter of books a Doctor 
can get around him—and what a fear¬ 
ful outlay of money they will come to 
represent if he doesn’t use great dis¬ 
crimination in their purchase. ’ ’ 

Or if you were a housewife, worrying 


14 


I 


over the day’s marketing, wouldn’t you 
welcome such a suggestion as this? 

“I think if I lived away from the 
sea-shore and someone wrote me, of¬ 
fering to send me fish right from the 
boats, I’d be mighty pleased. I’d 
jump at the chance to get it. For if 
there is anything that tastes good to 
a person who lives inland, it’s GOOD 
fish. Probably because it’s so hard to 
get the GOOD kind in the stores. But 
I—etc.” 

Or if you were interested in rare or 
unusual bric-a-brac: 

“Of all the odd things I have seen 
happen in rather a long and active 
business career, this I believe to he 
the oddest: 

“To have a few of the historically 
famous ‘75’ M/M Shells, saved intact 
from war’s ravages by a chain of cir¬ 
cumstances, almost Providential; to 
have a great artist discover in the 
stately lines of those shells the ideal 
shape for a beautiful table lamp; to 
have written you telling you all about 

15 



this wonderful lamp and offering you 
the chance to have one at a price less 
than half the price an equally good 
lamp usually sells for in a store— 

“—and then not to hear a word from 
you! 1 ’ 


Or if you were any business man, 
puzzling over some intricate problem, 
wouldn’t this hit you where you live? 


“That vexing question answered— 
that business problem solved—di¬ 
rectly, accurately, instantly—and you 
need not even leave your desk. ’ ’ 


16 


QF course, there 
are ways of 
flagging the read¬ 
er’s interest even 
before he gets to 
the first line of your letter. Putting a 
catch phrase on the outside of your en¬ 
velope is one, like—“ ‘If the Darned 
Fools Only Knew,’ said Roosevelt.” A 
clever design at the top of a letter, or 
an attention-arresting sentence there, is 
also good. “Spies at Work!” written 
in red ink across the top of a hook-sell¬ 
ing letter helped it materially, as did 
also “Your last chance to get True Sto¬ 
ries Free!” on another. 

Perhaps the most effective of all is 
using an illustrated, colored letter head. 
Properly done, this will almost invari¬ 
ably improve returns, and in a number 
of cases it has doubled them. But a 



17 




mere splurge of color won’t do this—in 
fact, it will frequently work the contrary 
effect. The illustrations must be appro¬ 
priate, they must be good, and the color¬ 
ing must be of the best. 

All this applies to sales letters. If 
a man has, or thinks he has, a grievance 
against you, the mere sight of your 
name on the envelope will recall that 
grievance to him. So it is a very simple 
matter to fit your start in with his line 
of thought. Suppose you wrote him: 

“We certainly don’t blame you for 
getting ‘riled’ at receiving no answer 
to your three letters complaining 
about the non-arrival of your order. 

In your place, we, too, would feel that 
there was something radically wrong 
with an organization that showed so 
little attention to as old and tried a 
customer as you. 

“But—etc.” 


18 


JN acknowledging 
an order or trac¬ 
ing a shipment, on 
the other hand, the 
thing your reader 
wants to know first is what has been 
done about it, so start right in with real 
information: 



“Your order of XYZ went forward 
by express this morning. ’ ’ 


Or 


“We located your car of coal in the 
yards at XX last night and persuaded 
Trainmaster Smith to couple it on to 
fast freight No. 99 and rush it straight 
through. It should be on your siding 
tomorrow morning.” 


Letters such as this require no effort 
to reach the reader’s train of thought. 
All he wants to know is the facts about 


19 






the case and he looks to you to give them 
to him. So go right to the heart of your 
subject in the opening paragraph. You 
don’t need to acknowledge his letter— 
he’ll take it for granted you got that. 
Start right out with the things he wants 
to know. 

Here are two complete letters that 
show the importance of this matter of 
starting right. ‘ The first wanders all 
around with general statements and in¬ 
consequential remarks and gets no¬ 
where. Probably not one man in a hun¬ 
dred reads through even the first para¬ 
graph. The second grips your attention 
at once and then follows that up logi¬ 
cally with description, argument, proof 
and inducement. Needless to say, it 
brought home the bacon. 

“Dear Friend:— 

“We are requested by one who is 
deeply interested in our work to ask 
you if you are aware of the ‘World 
Dangers’ resulting from the present 


20 


alignment of the nations of the world 
and their direct bearing on your re¬ 
ligious and political belief, your busi¬ 
ness career and the welfare of the 
home life of the American peoples 
generally that the present world con¬ 
vulsions will affect. 

“The greatest American of his day, 
when he saw a World War was inevi¬ 
table, said, ‘Oh! If they only knew’ 
yet today we are confronted with 
problems and dangers much greater 
than he realized. Do you intend to 
face these blindly or with a mind 
alert to these dangers, or would you 
wish to have the opinions of those who 
have made them a lifetime study and 

whose articles appearing m the- 

magazine will place you in a position 
to guard your interests from what is 
now threatening this nation and your 
own future particularly. 

‘ ‘ Our magazine is firmly established 
as the only one which vividly por¬ 
trays the true conditions we are in 
and has become a text book for all 
religious denominations, schools and 
libraries as well as a far-sighted and 
political guide. 


21 



“As it is impossible for the news 
stands to carry a supply equal to the 
demand, although selling for thirty- 
five cents a copy, we enclose here¬ 
with a blank form to be filled in and 
returned to us. Should you decide 

to subscribe to the - magazine 

for the next two years we will mail 
you, free of cost, the complete seven 
lesson course on ‘Physical Training 
and Life Extension’ and give you the 
privilege of sending us the names, ad¬ 
dresses and occupations of not more 
than five of your intimate friends 
whom you would like to interest in 
our work. These names must be writ¬ 
ten on the reverse side of this letter 
and returned to us and we will then 
extend to them the same offer we are 
making to you.” 

Compare that with this: 

“Dear Sir:— 

“One of the most interesting items 
in recent biography is the story of 
how Joseph Pulitzer, handicapped by 
blindness, fed his wonderful mind to 
the last by employing a corps of ex- 


22 



pert readers who skimmed the cream 
from the world’s news and passed it 
along to him with a quickness which 
he would probably have found impos¬ 
sible even with his eyesight, in the 
midst of the large affairs that de¬ 
manded his time as the executive head 
of a great metropolitan daily news¬ 
paper. 

‘‘The business executive ordinarily 
has not the means of sorting out from 
the great mass of business facts only 
those of special interest and value for 
himself. 

“The heaped up mass of reading 
matter on his desk points clearly to 
the want of an instrument that will 
perform for him the task of Mr. Pu¬ 
litzer’s staff of secretaries. 

“Perhaps you have felt, as have so 
many other business men, the want 
for a business magazine that shall pre¬ 
sent essential business facts in their 
relation to other business facts and 
that shall be at once timely, compre¬ 
hensive and authentic. 

“It is in response to that want that 
The Chamber of Commerce published 
its official monthly magazine, The Na¬ 
tion’s Business. 


23 


“The Nation’s Business was pub¬ 
lished originally for the especial ben¬ 
efit of members of the national cham¬ 
ber. 

“The information it provides is 
held to be so important at this time 
that we are authorized to increase the 
number to whom we send The Na¬ 
tion’s Business each month. 

“It is sold by subscription for $3 
a year. It is not published for profit; 
as a member of the Chamber said re¬ 
cently, ‘It is published not for what 
it can make, but for what it can do.’ 

“Your subscription is invited.” 

There is just one thing to he guarded 
against in working up your reader’s in¬ 
terest—and that is an anti-climax. I 
have in mind a very eloquent lawyer who 
was defending a moving-van company 
against a suit for loss of household 
goods by fire while they were in the com¬ 
pany’s van. 

This lawyer won every juror’s breath¬ 
less interest the moment he started. 
“Gentlemen,” he exclaimed impress- 


24 


ively, * ‘I want you to remember that 
these are war times. My clients con¬ 
tracted to move this man’s household 
goods—not a load of explosives. I am 
going to prove to you that included 
among his effects Were high explosives.” 

Every man in the court room sat for¬ 
ward eagerly; everyone waited with 
bated breath, expecting to hear the de¬ 
tails of some hideous plot. 

Imagine their disappointment, then, 
when it was brought out that the explo¬ 
sives consisted of nothing more danger¬ 
ous than half a dozen shot-gun shells left 
in an old duck-hunting vest. The jury 
returned a verdict against the van com¬ 
pany without moving from their seats. 

Put in brief, the whole secret of get¬ 
ting your reader’s attention is to find 
the point of contact between your propo¬ 
sition and some vital need of his. It 
may be done by a clever news story, as 
in the case of the magazine subscription 


25 


letter. It may be by reference to the one 
thing nearest the reader’s heart, as with 
the mother and her baby. It may be an 
appeal to pride, as in the case of the 
father of a boy; it may be to gain, as 
with the business man. But whichever 
it is, bring out that need in your very 
first line —play upon it—then, when 
you’ve made your tie-up with his 
thoughts, bring in your proposition, 
show how it satisfies his need—appeal to 
his own self-interest! 


26 


♦GETTING YOUR IDEA ACROSS 




rlEK you 
have gotten 


the reader’s at¬ 
tention, the next 
thing is to get 
your idea across 
—win his inter¬ 
est in your prop¬ 


osition—so describe it that he can see it 
as you see it. 

The secret of visualizing your propo¬ 
sition in a letter is largely a matter of 
imitating David Harum the time he was 
telling some friends about having heard 
“The Lost Chord/’ but couldn’t remem¬ 
ber its name. He just described it in 
terms of things that they knew: 

“It’s about a feller sittin’ one day 
by the org’n,” he told them, “an’ not 


•Reprinted by courtesy of Printers’ Ink. 

27 


feelin’ exac’ly right—kind o’ tired 
an’ out o’ sorts an’ not knowin’ jes’ 
where he was drivin’ at—jes’ joggin’ 
along with a loose rein fer quite a 
piece, an’ so on; an’ then, by an’ by, 
strikin’ right into his gait an’ goin’ 
on stronger an’ stronger, an’ finly 
finishin ’ up with an A—men that car¬ 
ries him quarter way ’round the track 
’fore he c’n pull up.” 

Thousands of sales have been lost, 
millions of dollars of business have 
failed to materialize, solely because so 
few letter-writers have that knack of 
visualizing a proposition—of painting it 
in words so the reader can see it as they 
see it. 

After you have caught your reader’s 
attention, after you have won his inter¬ 
est, there still remains this difficult job 
of getting your idea over—of picturing 
your proposition to him. 

The secret of success in it lies in pick¬ 
ing out some feature of your proposition 


28 


that he can easily grasp, some object or 
idea he is thoroughly familiar with, 
and building upon that. Probably the 
best example on record is Washington 
Irving’s description of the school-mas¬ 
ter in the “Legend of Sleepy Hollow”: 

* ‘ He was tall, but exceedingly lank, 
with narrow, sloping shoulders, long 
arms and legs, hands that dangled a 
mile out of his sleeves, and his whole 
framework most loosely hung to¬ 
gether. His head was small, etc. ’ ’ 

See how he gives you the most obvious 
feature first, qualifies it, adds to it, then 
supplies further details until the whole 
picture is filled in. 

Remember this, though: Your reader 
can grasp but one idea at a time. As he 
reads your letter, he builds a picture 
with the words you give him, like a child 
building a house with blocks. Give him, 
therefore, the big, essential ones first, 
the little filling-in details later, or your 
whole structure will tumble down. 


29 


Start with the feature he can most 
readily comprehend—build on that and 
make every additional feature advance 
the central idea—take him one step 
nearer the goal. If it won’t do that, cut 
it out. 

Here is the way other successful 
writers have done it: 

“Old age is merely our name for 
the gradual poisoning of our bodies. 
Aches and pains burrowing and 
creeping through the system, a re¬ 
laxed abdomen, deepening lines on the 
face, jangling nerves, a haunting feel¬ 
ing of dullness and gloom—these out¬ 
ward signs indicate that actual poi¬ 
sons are being deposited in blood, tis¬ 
sues and joints.” 


“Here are real stories of real char¬ 
acters—memorable, astounding. Here 
are the adventures of the amazing 
Mascarin and his rascally band—the 
Robin Hood of Paris. Here are the 
escapades of the celebrated Yidocq— 
soldier, adventurer, criminal, galley 


30 



slave—first chief of the reorganized 
detective bureau of Paris/ ’ 


“If you like mackerel that is white 
and juicy, thickmeated and fat, cod¬ 
fish that is tender and ‘ good-tasting,’ 
lobster that’s as sweet, fresh and 
dainty as though you had just taken 
it from the shell, let me supply you. 

“With your appetite sharpened by 
the tempting aroma of a Davis ‘first 
choice’ fish, you won’t need to be 
urged to eat—you ’ll come to the table 
knowing that here’s a meal you’ll 
truly enjoy. For Davis fish never 
disappoint. In the flavor of these 
‘first choice’ fish there’s a wholesome 
goodness that appeals to everyone. 
You’ll realize it as you taste the first 
morsel. ’ ’ 


“You can make your body live, 
supple, muscular, full of energy and 
vitality. You can have a clear brain, 
a powerful heart, a massive chest, 
broad, muscular shoulders, a wrist 
and arm of steel. All these were 
meant for you—all these you can have 
if you will but learn and obey a few 
simple natural laws.’ 

31 




“This mark certifies that the hog 
came from good stock, that it was 
corn-fed in order that it might be 
firm and sweet—that it was a barrow 
hog, so that the meat would be full- 
flavored and juicy—that it was a 
young hog, making the ham thin- 
skinned and tender, well-conditioned 
and fat, insuring the lean of the ham 
to be tasty and nutritious. ’ ’ 

In short, your problem is much the 
same as that of the newspaper para¬ 
graphed He sums up the meat of his 
story in two or three words in his head¬ 
line. Then he adds a sub-head, giving 
a few essential details. Then a few lines, 
elaborating or explaining these. With 
this frame-work to build upon, he fills in 
his story. 


32 


SUPPLYING THE REASON WHY 


r F'HE average man is 
like an automobile. 
He can be pushed and 
pulled along or he can 
be moved to action by starting up his 
own motive power from within. The lat¬ 
ter method is called exercising persua¬ 
sion. You must give your reader a mo¬ 
tive—a reason why he should do as you 
want him—or he won’t do it. The secret 
of persuasion is to arouse in your reader 
a motive that w T ill impel him to the action 
you desire. 

There are six prime motives of human 
action— 

Love 

Gain 

Duty 

Pride 

Self-Indulgence 

Self-Preservation 



33 



Experienced letter writers always 
choose the strongest motives when there 
is room for choice, but you must always 
remember to distinguish between the 
idea that the reader is to be sold on 
and the motive that will persuade him 
to sign the order. For the idea that will 
make a business man want to possess an 
office appliance may be pride in the ap¬ 
pearance of his office, but the motive that 
will make him buy may be the safeguard¬ 
ing of his records. 

The strongest motive of all is Love— 
love of wife or sweetheart, love of par¬ 
ents or children. Given the right touch, 
that appeal will get anything you want 
from your reader. Write a mother like 
this, for instance, and if she can in any 
way manage it, you will get her order: 

“You know how the little folks 
just love a good story—how they’d 
rather listen to one than eat or play 
or sleep—how they beg you, some¬ 
times, to tell them a story, to read to 
them. 


34 


‘ ‘ They will read something, you 
know, and it’s what they read now 
that determines what they are to be— 
it’s their heroes, their ideals, the men 
and women who are made to seem to 
them wonderful and worthy to pat¬ 
tern after, that form your children’s 
characters. 

* ‘ If you could pick from all the lit¬ 
erature of the world just the stories 
of folk-lore and fable, just the tales 
of fiction and history, just the poems 
that would give your children the 
right ideals, that would stimulate 
them to their best efforts, that would 
give the finest ground-work for their 
later studies, and if you could have 
the advice of the best-read man and 
the greatest educator of his day as to 
that reading, you’d feel that no price 
was too high to pay for it. 

“You can get just those stories, 
tales and poems—846 of them—etc.” 

See how this letter appeals to her love 
for her children—her anxiety for their 
well-being — her ambition that they 
should grow up into worthy men and 


35 


women. Then how cleverly it shows her 
just how she can insure this. 

Next to “Love” in pulling power is 
the “Gain” motive. Show a man how 
he can make more money, how he can 
rise to position and power, how he can 
effect some big saving, and you have his 
interest. It is by appealing to this mo¬ 
tive that “Power of Will” has made 
such a big success—that the Interna¬ 
tional Correspondence Schools have 
built up the biggest business of its kind 
in the world—that business courses and 
business books are sold by the hundred 
thousand. 

“Five Days to Prove I Can Raise 
Your Pay” is one of the “Power of 
Will” catch phrases. “A New Idea That 
Makes Men Rich” is another. 

Of course, the more motives your 
proposition appeals to, the more success¬ 
ful it will be. Most good letters appeal 
to two or three different motives, some- 


36 


times in one paragraph, frequently in 
the same sentence. “Save one-fourth 
and Have the Best” is a common in¬ 
stance. 

Here is one that gives motive and 
proof together. “On page 112 of this 
book there is a cost system all worked 
out that saved Jones & Co. $20,000 a 
year in office expense.” 

Here is a good appeal to that feeling 
of pride that everyone has in possessing 
rare pieces of art. 

“A Lamp That Can Never Be Made 
Again! 

“There is an old saying that ‘What 
man has done, man can do again/ 
but this is one case where man is 
powerless. A COMBINATION OF 
CIRCUMSTANCES created this 
lamp—a combination which could not 
occur again in a century. 

“Unless the great war should be 
fought over again; unless the terrible 
Morgan explosion of munitions should 
occur again; unless out of its train of 

37 


disasters a small lot of the famous 
‘75’ shells should be saved again; 
and then unless an armistice should 
come again at just the right moment 
to make the use of these shells for 
war unnecessary—unless all these 
things should happen again in just 
that order, not another of these beau¬ 
tiful, massive ROMANTIC lamps can 
ever be created.” 

The motives of duty, pride, self-indul¬ 
gence and self-preservation bring results 
in the order named, but they are fre¬ 
quently so intermingled that it is hard 
to tell exactly which one you are appeal¬ 
ing to most. “The Kind of Man You 
Want to Be” might be an appeal to 
either gain or pride. “Physical Vigor 
and Success” might be either self-pres¬ 
ervation or gain, but as long as you give 
the reader a good, strong reason for 
doing as you want him, the exact motive 
is not of such great consequence. 

Summed up in words of two syllables, 
the question of arousing the proper mo- 


38 



tive is simply a matter of making your 
reader want your product, not by de¬ 
scribing it, but by showing what it will 
do for him, how he will benefit by get¬ 
ting it, what he will lose by not having it. 


39 


GETTING ACTION 


fTVHE need of an im¬ 
pulse at the crit¬ 
ical moment has been 
recognized and used 
for years. Watch the 
crowd in front of a 
side show at the cir¬ 
cus and you will see that at just the 
right moment in the barker’s talk his 
assistants on the outside of the crowd 
start a general push forward towards 
the ticket window. 

The first thing to do is to find the 
proper motive your letter should arouse 
and then seek some easy preliminary 
task on which that motive can be set at 
work. The next step is to make it easier 
for the writer, already started, to go 
forward than to halt and go back. 

When you have an important letter 



40 


to write, put down on paper the final 
action you desire, whether it be to send 
you an order or to pay a bill. Then 
write down the motive that will impel 
your reader to perform that action. 
Then think out some action you can set 
that motive busy on. 

For instance, here's the way one shoe 
manufacturer closed his letter to the 
wholesalers: 

“Just pick out ten customers who 
are good shoe buyers. Tell them 
frankly you think you’ve gotten hold 
of a better shoe and say you want 
them to try out one case and tell you 
how they work. Put it up to them 
square. That will be ten cases sold 
the first week—and seven out of these 
ten retailers, we guarantee, will tell 
you they are the best shoes they ever 
handled at the price and they will be 
seven customers who will push those 
shoes thereafter to the exclusion of 
all competing lines. 

“And if the other three don’t like 


41 


them, they will be almost as pleased 
because you tried to help them. 

“Why, that will pay you just as 
advertising — not free advertising 
alone, but advertising that pays you 
the profit on ten cases of shoes. 

“We will do our part and back our 
own scheme by billing you for the ten 
cases at the quantity price regularly 
given on 100-case orders—if you put 
them out in that way. 

“There’s a bully good plan—you 
try out the proposition without a 
chance to lose and a sure profit be¬ 
sides. 

“Is it a go?” 

Your reader, in short, is interested. 
You've caught his attention, won his in¬ 
terest, described your proposition and 
showed him his need of it, but he hasn’t 
quite made up his mind. He balks at 
putting his name on the dotted line. 
“Some other time!” “Tomorrow!” 
That little word “Tomorrow” has lost 
more sales than all other causes put to¬ 
gether. So don’t ask him to decide defi- 


42 


nitely on your main proposition—put his 
mind to working on some minor point— 
ask him whether he thinks six cases are 
enough for a thorough try-out—then get 
your decision on that minor point that 
yet carries the major with it. 


43 


*THE CLINCHER TO THE LETTER 


AS the tail is to the 
kite, as the rudder 
is to the ship, so is the 
cloae to any important 
letter. It may be a per¬ 
fectly good letter aside 
from that. It may fit 
right in with the read¬ 
er’s thoughts, it may 
win his interest, it may spur him to ac¬ 
tion, but if it doesn’t tell him what to 
do, if it doesn’t provide a penalty for his 
not doing it, your prospect will slip away 
from you like a fish off the hook. 

There is just one reason why anyone 
ever reads a letter you send him. He 
expects a reward. That is the key to 
holding his interest. All through your 
letter, you keep leading him on and on, 
constantly feeding his interest, hut al- 

* Reprinted by courtesy of Printers’ Ink. 

44 



ways holding something back for the cli¬ 
max—the close. 

In the same way, there is only one 
reason why your reader will do as you 
want him to. He fears the penalty you 
hold over him. It may be a delinquent 
debtor in fear of loss of credit standing 
or of court action. It may be the buyer 
fearing to lose a good opportunity. It 
may be the merchant fearing to lose your 
trade. It may he the ambitious young¬ 
ster fearing to lose an opportunity for 
advancement. But unless your close can 
inspire action through the fear of loss 
—of money or prestige or opportunity— 
it won’t bring results. 

And to inspire that action, be definite I 
Be specific! If you are threatening suit, 
tell your reader when you are going to 
put the account in your lawyer’s hands 
—make him act within a stated time. If 
you are going to advance your price, set 
a definite date for it. Make your reader 
feel that this is his last chance—keep 


45 


that penalty dangling before his mind’s 
eye—the money-saving lost—the oppor¬ 
tunity missed. Put into your close the 
fear of consequences. 

Finally, tell him what to do. Don’t 
leave it to him to decide. We’re all men¬ 
tally lazy, so dictate his action for him— 
get your suggester to work. If he is to do 
certain things —describe them. Tell him 
to “Put your name on the enclosed card, 
stamp and mail, ” or “ Pin your check or 
dollar bill to this letter and mail in the 
enclosed envelope,” or “Sit down now 
and fill out the order form, write your 
check and mail in the stamped envelope 
enclosed. ’ ’ 

Show him that he takes no chances 
in doing as you tell him. Quote the tes : 
timonials of prominent men, or submit 
a list of users, or, best of all, give him 
a money-back-if-not-satisfied guarantee. 

Here’s the way others have done it: 

“To prove it, all you have to do is 


46 


fill in, sign and mail this card. After 
30 days you CAN return the ma¬ 
chine IF YOU WANT TO! 

‘ ‘ Try it out! Never mind what we 
SAY your shop men will get out of 
it—FIND OUT! It’s easy. Just 
send the card.” 


“Remember, an order is simply an 
opportunity for the Royal to sell 
itself to you. There is no sale—no 
obligation to keep it—until you have 
used it in your own shop for 60 days 
AND ARE SATISFIED! Just let 
us send it along.” 


“But you’re playing safe—your 
dollar has a STRING to it. It isn’t 
mine until you say so. You get it 
back if you’re willing to give back 
the books. 

“And it’s all at my risk, anyway. 
Why hesitate or hem and haw ? ’ ’ 


“This won’t put you under the 
least obligation. If we can’t show 
you that it is to your interest to go 
into the matter further, it’s our fault 


47 





—not yours. Mail the card now and 
let us put the facts before you.” 


“Don’t file this away to ‘think 
over.’ There’s nothing to puzzle 
about, because you don’t have to send 
one penny or promise anything other 
than that you will return the goods 
if you don’t like them. 

‘ ‘ That’s easy, isn’t it ? Just use the 
postcard.” 


“Simply pin a two-dollar bill to 
this letter as a deposit and we will 
send the book by the first mail. Look 
it over carefully. If you don’t see 
a dollar’s worth in almost every page, 
write us a mere postcard and we will 
return the two dollars. 

“There are no restrictions, no con¬ 
ditions, no strings to this offer. It is 
open to every well-rated business man 
who acts before the first edition of 
the book is exhausted. Pin your two 
dollars to this letter and mail today. ’ ’ 


“Remember, we sell on the com¬ 
plete understanding that if the ma¬ 
chine is not perfectly satisfactory—or 


48 





better still, completely to your liking 
—it can be returned at our expense 
and your money will be promptly re¬ 
funded.’ : ’ 


‘ ‘ Fill out the enclosed slip and mail 
it today. It will bring you the sam¬ 
ples at once, so that you can start this 
department with no delay. 

“Remember, you risk nothing—all 
you have to think about is your 
profit. ’ ’ 


“Signing and sending the enclosed 
card ‘puts the burden of proof upon 
us* and incurs not the slightest obli¬ 
gation. 

“May we hope you will MAIL IT 
TODAY?” 


‘ ‘ Here is my offer: Tell me on the 
order blank what to send you. Try 
the goods in your home; then if you 
don’t decide that they are every bit 
as good as you expected, return what 
you have left at my expense. Those 
you have used in making the test cost 
you nothing. Could I be fairer ? Be¬ 
fore you put this letter down, get 


49 





your pencil ready. You will be well 
repaid for acting promptly—I prom¬ 
ise you that.” 

“But you must act now—only 2700 
copies of this book remain on hand 
and live manufacturers will snap up 
this offer. So pin your money to this 
letter and mail it today.” 


“BURN THIS IN YOUR MIND: 

4 ‘ It MIGHT be a blamed-sight more 
expensive NOT to read it. NOT to 
read it may cost you MANY THOU¬ 
SANDS !I Think it over. I’ll be $2 
richer if you write today and put 
that amount in the envelope, BUT 
AT THE END OF A YEAR 
YOU’LL LOOK BACK AND SAY 
THAT $2 WAS THE MOST MIR- 
ACULOUSLY MULTIPLYING 
MONEY YOU EVER PARTED 
WITH IN YOUR LIFE !! 

“For ‘The- Story’ is the mir¬ 

acle book that builds new back-bone 
and bigger bank accounts. 

‘ ‘ It will pay huge dividends to you 
and you alone. SEND for it—don’t 
miss it for a Million. 

“S-E-N-D T-O-D-A-Y!” 

50 





In conclusion, remember that a suc¬ 
cessful close has two parts. The first 
consists of persuasion and inducement 
—it shows the gain to the reader in or¬ 
dering, the loss that is his by delay. It 
emphasizes the guarantee and minimizes 
the cost. 

When he gets that far, your reader 
is almost ready to act, but your close 
lacks a clincher. What must he do to 
get all these things? Tell him! Make it 
so plain and easy he w T on’t have a reason 
on earth for not ordering. If you don’t, 
you haven’t finished your letter, and 
lacking the effect of that clincher, your 
reader is going to lapse from his “al¬ 
most ready” attitude back into indiffer¬ 
ence. 


51 


COLLECTION LETTERS 



T)ERHAPS there is no 
A better example of 
this than in collection 

“letters. If any letter 
needs a clincher—if any letter requires 
a firm, positive statement of just what 
the reader must do and when, the collec¬ 
tion letter does. Yet nowhere do you 
find more namby-pamby phrases, more 

i ‘ Trusting to hear from you ’ * 1 * * and ‘ 4 * * * * Hop¬ 

ing to receive a remittance ’ 9 than in col¬ 

lection letters. Just listen to this one: 


“You are undoubtedly aware of the 

balance due on your account. I be 

lieve you care little for dunning let¬ 

ters, and for me to personally write 

of the whole affair would consume 
considerable unnecessary time. 

‘ ‘ Extensive experience has led us to 
conclude that there is a positive dan¬ 
ger in your failure to give regular 
attention to payments. When you fail 

52 



to send them in promptly it does not 
take long for back payments to ac¬ 
cumulate to such an extent that it is 
a great inconvenience—and often an 
unanticipated impossibility—to pay 
at all. 

“Not having heard from you for 
quite some time, I ask you to please 
confer a personal favor by advising 
me when I can expect a remittance, or 
possibly make known the circum¬ 
stances that have prevented payment. 

‘ ‘ Thanking you in advance for this 
personal courtesy.” 

Could anything be better calculated to 
lull the debtor into a sense of security, 
to make him feel—“Of course these 
people want their money, but they are 
too diffident to ever do anything about 
it”? Compare that with this courteous 
but forceful, definite request for pay¬ 
ment: 

“Dear Sir: 

YOU FORGOT 

“—that check you were going to send 
to us, ten days ago. 

53 


“We don’t like to keep reminding 
you of it—but we dislike still more the 
expense and trouble of carrying one 
month’s accounts over into the next. 
So won’t you PLEASE let us have 
that check to-day? 

“Don’t bother to write a letter— 
we understand how such oversights 
occur—just pin your check or money 
order to this letter and return in the 
enclosed envelope. 

“Yours for co-operation” 

Or this: 

“Dear Sir: 

“Some people, the minute a delay 
or dispute arises in the payment of a 
bill of theirs, want to rush to the law 
about it. They think that the only 
reason that a person can have for not 
paying a bill when it is due must be 
dishonesty. 

“But we know better. 

“We have dealt with too many peo¬ 
ple not to know that only a very, very 
small percentage are deliberately dis¬ 
honest. 


54 


‘ ‘ But many perfectly honest people 
get classed with the ‘dead beats* 
simply because they are careless. They 
fully intend to pay, and do pay 
eventually, but because the amounts 
involved are small, they put them off. 

“Now we know that you fully in¬ 
tend to pay the $- overdue on 

your account—we know that event¬ 
ually we will get the money, but that 
difference between ‘eventually* and 
‘now* is what marks the line between 
the ‘gilt-edged* customer and the 
‘poor pay\ 

“You want to be in the gilt-edged 
class, even if you never buy another 
book from us or another dollar’s 
worth of goods on credit. It’s such a 
pleasant feeling to know that you are 
a ‘ preferred risk ’—that any merchant 
will be glad to extend credit privileges 
to you if you want them. Get 
back into that class by pinning your 
check or money order to this letter 
now, and dropping it in the mail. ’ * 

In collection letters, as in everything 
else, it is well to remember that you can 


55 





catch more flies with honey than with 
vinegar. 

Generally speaking, the first three or 
four letters should adopt the attitude 
that the debtor has merely overlooked 
the account and will pay promptly now 
that the matter has been called to his 
attention. If three or four such letters 
don’t get a rise out of him, however, it 
is time to point out to him a few of the 
unpleasant consequences that will accrue 
to him if he doesn’t pay promptly. 

“If there is any doubt in your mind,” 
writes one creditor, “as to the position 
you have placed yourself in by your ap¬ 
parent failure to act in good faith, we 
suggest that you consult your attorney 
and ask him to read to you Section — 
of the General Statutes of the United 
States. This may cost you several dol¬ 
lars, but it will be money well spent. ’ ’ 

“We collect money,” writes another, 
“peaceably if possible, forcibly if neces¬ 
sary —but we collect!” 


56 


How many collection letters should 
you send before having recourse to the 
law? It all depends upon the circum¬ 
stances and the business. In handling 
installment accounts, I have known a 
series of 15 to 20 to pay. With ordi¬ 
nary commercial accounts, it shouldn’t 
take more than five or six letters to lead 
up to a draft, and after that, two or 
three more to lead to a lawyer, though 
the law is a last resort and should never 
be appealed to if there is any possible 
way around it. 

Close collections, as a rule, are good 
collections. If you follow a man up the 
moment his account starts to lag be¬ 
hind, if you camp right on his trail and 
keep reminding him courteously, but 
firmly, of that overdue balance, the 
chances are you will get it. 


57 



nr o sum up, 

every good 
letter contains 
these six essen¬ 
tial elements: 


1st—The Opening, 
which gets the reader’s 
attention by fitting in 
with his train of 
thought, and establishes 
a point of contact with his interests, thus 
exciting his curiosity and prompting him 
to read further. 


2nd—The Description or Explanation, 
which pictures your proposition to the 
reader by first outlining its important 
features, and then filling in the neces¬ 
sary details. 


58 



3rd—The Motive, or Reason Why, 
which creates a longing in your reader’s 
mind for what yon are selling, or impels 
him to do as you want him by describing, 
not your proposition, but what it will do 
for him—the comforts, the pleasure, the 
profits he will get from it. 

4th—The Proof or Guarantee, which 
offers to the reader proof of the truth 
of your statements, or establishes con¬ 
fidence by a money-back-if-not-satisfied 
guarantee. 

5th—The Snapper or Penalty, which 
gets immediate action by holding over 
your reader’s head the loss in money, or 
prestige, or opportunity that will be his 
if he doesn’t act at once. 

6th—The Close, which tells the reader 
just what to do and how to do it, and 
makes it easy for him to act at once. 

These elements may not always ap¬ 
pear in this exact order, but they are in 


59 


every good letter. They may all be con¬ 
tained in a single paragraph, or they 
may be spread out over a dozen pages. 

Some authorities will tell you to write 
only short, crisp letters—others to write 
nothing but long ones. Both are wrong. 
There is no hard and fast rule covering 
how long a letter should be, excepting 
that it should be long enough to tell your 
story, but short enough to hold the read¬ 
er^ interest. 

As a general proposition, a letter in 
which you seek only inquiries should be 
short, whereas a letter in which you are 
trying to sell something should be long 
enough to tell all about your proposition. 
As Lincoln put it when someone asked 
him how long a man’s legs should be— 
“They should be long enough to reach 
the ground.’’ 


60 











































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